Andrew Rose Robinson

Andrew Rose Robinson was born in Canada but subsequently became a U.S. citizen. He studied in Toronto and at the Bellevue Hospital/Medical College in New York, where he graduated M.D. in 1868. He received further education in Edinburgh, London, Paris, and Vienna, and received his doctorate at Edinburgh in 1870.

He settled as a dermatologist in New York, where he became professor of dermatology at the New York Polyclinic Medical School Hospital. Always interested in pathology, he at one time held an appointment as professor of histology and pathology at the New York Medical College Hospital for women.

He was abrupt in manner and had few friends but was a keen member of the Robert Burns Society, named for the Scottish national poet Robert Burns (1759-1796), equally famous for his lyrics and songs in the Scottish dialect of English, as he was for his amours and his rebellion against orthodox religion and morality. He was also a member of the St. Andrew’s Society.

In 1884, the year in which he published the first description of hydrocystoma, he wrote an excellent manual of dermatology.